Learn more about The Client:

Mark was eleven and had been smoking off and on for two years, never trying to quit but being careful not to get hooked. (from the first line)

In this #1 "New York Times" bestseller, now available in a tall Premium Edition, a young boy is inadvertently present at the bizarre suicide of a New Orleans defense attorney on the eve of the biggest trial of his career. Reissue.

From the Publisher:

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Eleven-year-old Mark Sway and his younger brother are sharing a forbidden cigarette when a chance encounter with a suicidal lawyer leaves Mark knowing a bloody and explosive secret: the whereabouts of the most-sought-after dead body in America.

Now Mark is caught between a legal system gone mad and a mob killer desperate to cover up his crime. And his only ally is a woman named Reggie Love, who has been a lawyer for all of four years. Prosecutors are willing to break all the rules to make Mark talk. The mob will stop at nothing to keep him quiet. And Reggie will do anything to protect her client—even take a last, desperate gamble that could win Mark his freedom . . . or cost them both their lives.

Annotation:An 11-year-old boy, Mark Sway, witnesses the suicide of a Mafia lawyer who unburdens himself of his client's murderous secret before he pulls the trigger. Now Mark is stuck with the knowledge of the whereabouts of a missing body and a killer who wants to silence him, while an ambitious U.S attorney wants him to talk. His only ally is divorcee and novice attorney, Reggie Love, who has to earn the boy's trust before she can help him live to see age 12.

Author Bio

John Grisham

John Grisham woke up at 5:00 every morning for three years to complete his first novel, A TIME TO KILL. Working as a lawyer and a member of Mississippi's state legislature, Grisham published his debut thriller with a small and somewhat unknown publisher, receiving only local readership in his home state. He finally burst on to the national scene with his second novel, THE FIRM, a legal thriller that sold millions of copies and stayed on the New York Times best-seller list for 47 weeks. Shortly afterward, Grisham moved to Oxford, Mississippi, where he began working on a series of new legal thrillers, including THE PELICAN BRIEF and THE CLIENT, all of which became bestsellers and were subsequently made into successful films. Having graduated from the University of Mississippi in Oxford with a law degree in 1981, Grisham went on to base his popular thrillers on his experience as a specialist in criminal defense. His once-unknown debut, A TIME TO KILL, was made into a major motion picture in 1996.